If you are about to provide some much-needed assistance in a situation do you get ready to step (or leap, or jump) into the breach or the breech? The former. The sense of breach this expression applies to is “a gap (as in a wall) made by battering.” Breech, on the other hand, refers most often to a part of a rifle (near the rear of the barrel), the buttocks, or short pants which cover the hips and thighs (this sense is always found used in the plural, breeches). You may, if you are in a state of undress, step into your breeches before you step into the breach, but you would never step into your breaches before stepping into the breech.
plant yourselves on your breeches on that bench and listen to what I have to say the mounted riders look striking in their red coats and white breeches
Recent Examples on the WebMost artillery shells are sent downrange by the detonation of a propellant charge in the breech of the gun. Kyle Mizokami, Popular Mechanics, 12 Aug. 2022 Battle experts said the fragment was part of a larger cannon that experienced a breech failure after the battle in 1777. Carol Comegno, USA TODAY, 2 Aug. 2022 The guns are commonly identified by the thick band of iron around the breech (base) of the gun. Kyle Mizokami, Popular Mechanics, 15 Mar. 2022 This includes plugging a tank gun barrel with concrete, for example, or removing the breech mechanism. Kyle Mizokami, Popular Mechanics, 29 July 2021 So there was Glen, a veteran road warrior, filling the breech. Paul Daugherty, The Enquirer, 10 Sep. 2021 The gentleman who could have walked in from the Scottish moors stepped to the shooting box and dropped two shotshells into the side by side breech of his British hammer gun. Steve Meyer, Anchorage Daily News, 15 May 2021 The similarity stands, even though Jewish law posits that life begins at birth – with the emergence of the head, or in case of breech, the majority of the body (Ohalot 7:6). Rabbi Avi Weiss, sun-sentinel.com, 13 Apr. 2021 The loader grabbed hold of the loader’s hatch, swung his legs forward, and kicked the round in; the breech came up, and the gunner fired a round that destroyed a T-72 tank at very close range. H.r. Mcmaster, Washington Examiner, 4 Mar. 2021 See More
Word History
Etymology
Middle English, breeches, from Old English brēc, plural of brōc leg covering; akin to Old High German bruoh breeches, Latin braca pants
First Known Use
before the 12th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1a
Time Traveler
The first known use of breech was before the 12th century